I feel like every two years I need to call my carrier and complain if I want a decent deal. They will do things like upgrade my plan on their website to have 10 extra gigabytes of data but won’t upgrade me to it until I contact them. There’s also all the new member exclusive deals that I feel make it impractical to just sit on one plan for an extended period of time.
I’ve had the same plan for past 4 years. It’s also my first plan I had.
Originally €12/month, but the price increased to €13/month. If I was to get it now, it would be €15/month. It’s a data-only plan, but it gets me 300GB/month.
Unfortunately, my speeds are heavily crippled after shutdown of 3G. My carrier (Swan) only has 2G and 4G, but they had a contract with Orange for national roaming in their 2G and 3G networks. The FUP here was limited to 20GB, however in reality they allowed 40GB, as confirmed by the carrier (language: Slovak). The 3G offered far superior speeds during the day (30Mbps down as opposed to 1Mbps on 4G).Last month however, Orange shut down 3G. There’s now a new contract in place, allowing use of Orange’s 4G network except the 800MHz band. So… what’s the problem? It’s not done in the way of “national roaming” anymore. Instead the phone signs into Orange’s towers like native network. This also means I cannot explicitly use Orange’s network anymore by selecting it in “Mobile networks” setting.
Apparently, this was done to allow for “smoother experience while switching networks”.
I know a lot of people, including me, were using Orange’s network for faster speeds like this.But all hope is not lost, if you have MediaTek SoC, or a rooted Qualcomm device. For the latter, you should be able to use network signal guru.
For the former,*#*#3646633#*#*and head into band mode.
Here’s the trick: The network is clearly set up to prefer cell towers owned by Swan, unless it is absolutely necessary to use Orange. But Swan only has towers in 1800MHz (B3) band. If you disallow that band, it is suddenly absolutely necessary to use one of the Orange’s towers. Tada! Faster network speeds.
And also a warning: The carrier may not like you doing stuff like this. In fact, they may hate it, and ban you from using the network. There’s not enough info whether that actually happens or not.This kind of reminds me of an old PRL hacking article I’ve seen.
But anyway, it seems like these Orange towers may be doing some slight load balancing, as the speeds are now around 4-6Mbps during the day on home network. Still… 50Mbps on Orange towers.
Anyway, sorry, I got kind of off topic.
TL;DR: Never. My plan is cheap though slow. [Bunch of text] But it got a bit better.After using some grandfathered T-Mobile family plan for over a decade I moved us to Tello. Still the same towers, but with our usage it’s half the price.
Once a decade or so. Basically when they say “haha, your unlimited 3G plan won’t support 4G speeds, upgrade to this more expensive plan that supports modern transfer rates”.
Often, once a year or so. It’s the only reliable way to get a lower price plan where I live. If I were to stay on the same plan I was on a couple years ago I would be paying an extra 20-30$ a month in fees for less data.
It’s the only reliable way to get a lower price plan where I live.
That’s what I thought, too. But nonetheless, I stayed with the budget provider who was trying to shake up the market. I chose them solely because they were cheap.
When mobile plans started getting really competitive, they quadrupled my data (to over 10gb/mo) for free, no questions asked. So now I’m probably going to be a customer of theirs for life unless they start raising the price on my grandfathered plan.
Whenever I change employer and they get used to my habits. My employers have paid my phone bill since 2012, so they pick whatever is cheapest for them.
Fun fact: Largest bill (so far) was ~4000 USD equivalent for one month
What are you doing on a cell phone for that cost? There are international phone plans that would be so much cheaper.
I was over in TX for work, and we had a production system there that was needed online ASAP. So I grabbed a 4G router to allow the VPNs to connect and used one of my spare SIMs (associatedwith my cell phone plan). In 99% of the cases this would not have been an issue, as it’s mostly telemetry and the occasional SSH session. Until a geophysicist noticed that it was online and spent the next few weeks pulling down terrabytes of raw seismic data for testing.
LOL, whoops!
Never.
Ok almost never. By staying on the older plan I get a lower rate. I think I changed four years ago because the cost was basically the same but got more data. Before that… It was a long time ago
I don’t. My carrier calls every time the exclusivity deal wears off to plead to renew it, and I just negotiate extra speed, higher caps on my mobile data or make the plan simply cheaper
Been with the same carrier 18 years now, same unlimited plan for at least the last 8.
Never. I’ve only ever used a prepaid plan. I know exactly how much my bill is gonna be.
Well, not never. It’s been probably 5 years since I got wifi and changed to the lowest Internet plan. Before that it was also years since my last change.
You might be European as well (as am I). I supect the poster is from North America. And North America is a little special when it comes to phone/internet service (as in: almost universally, they pay a lot but always have the latest devices on their contact). Afaik, prepaid is mostly dead at least in the US, always was more expensive than in the EU
and always had a bad rap due to usage for “burner” phones. [edited: struck part of the sentence, see below]I’ve looked at “low-cost” mobile providers like Ting some time ago and shuddered at the prices.
Also, I feel like your information on how Americans feel about prepaid phones is somewhat inaccurate. Almost everyone I know who doesn’t have kids uses a prepaid plan, and there is definitely no stigma against them. Perhaps the Americans you talk to are more high class than I, but the working class uses prepaid more often than plans (at least people 40 or under).
Ok. I got the stigma thing mostly from movies, so I guess I need to watch fewer crime procedurals. :) I’ll edit the comment…
Nope. I live in Tennessee and use Cricket Mobile. Admittedly I don’t have children/family whose phones I pay for, which means I can avoid a family plan. That simplifies things. My husband also uses Cricket. $30/mo each (no extra taxes) thanks to using auto pay. (It would be $35 otherwise.) Unlimited calls/texts and 5GB data. That’s very low, but I have WiFi at home and the office, so I hardly use mobile data other than for GPS. Cricket uses AT&T’s towers, which have made great strides in cell service in rural Tennessee since I fist tried them a decade ago.
This reads like an ad, and I’m sorry for that. But, you should try this out if you can, fellow Americans.
One downside is that I don’t get free phones routinely as a plan would allow. But my phone was like $150-$180 and I’ve had it for… 2 or 3 years? Can’t remember. That is like an additional $6/month-ish.
Unlimited calls/texts and 5GB in Germany is currently around 8,99€/28d on prepaid (incl. VAT). Yet Germany is one of the more expensive countries in the EU. Prepaid plans from most other EU countries would likely not be cheaper but include more data. E.g. 3 Austria has a postpaid plan for 12,99€/m that includes 40 GB of data and unlimited calls/texts (that’s randomly the first provider I looked at).
Back in Germany, you can also get super-expensive postpaid plans with a device included of course. Economically, for private users that usually makes no sense though. These plans are often used for corporate phones or by people who want bragging rights.
(On the flip side, I guess the pricing pressure may be part of what apparently drives telecom companies to outsource even more of their business functions here than they do in the US.)
You don’t need to sell me on Germany. I’d move there in an instant if I had the resources.
Sorry if my comment came across overly braggy. Couldn’t help myself.
There are a lot of prepaid services through MVNOs, even Google sells one, they’re just not as mainstream. Ting has always been on the higher end.
I pay $25 a month for unlimited everything, but it doesn’t include the device. There is cheaper available, but more vulnerable to sim swapping attacks.
I think I’ve been on the same plan for about 10 years now. I’m with one of the only non-evil carriers in Canada, and I’ve never really felt like I needed more or wasn’t getting my money’s worth with them.
If you’re in the US, switch to Mint.
I pay about $45/month now. Is mint cheaper than that?
I pay $15 a month for a plan with 5gb data. But even their unlimited plan is $30 a month. So yes, mint is cheaper assuming you are talking about just one phone.
I have a prepaid plan that I never change. It costs nothing per month and I get 10 MB inclusive. I only add internet volume bundles when I need it for navigation for longer trips - to ensure it does not exceed that price (gets slower after).
Never. $25/line, unlimited talk / text / data. Had it for seven years now. Can’t beat that.
Can’t beat that
Laughs in Rest of the World
I change phones (used 5± years old), phone number, and service every year, but it has nothing to do with billing, price, or service quality. Had to create a list of accounts that I have to update as well. Would desperately like a virtual phone forwarding service I can trust to further help obfuscate.
Can you hear your phone ok through the tinfoil hat?
That just sounds like hell. Why?
Honestly, I acknowledge that I go WAY overboard when it comes to privacy… But of the past few numbers, I haven’t been able to find any tied back to me. I don’t recommend what I do for anyone, but anything I can do to obfuscate my data and online identity I usually do regardless of the inconveniences. As I’ve gotten better and better it’s become a fun challenge to find new ways to duck online corporate spyware. (Yes the government probably knows each and every number I’ve had… But there’s only so much a guy can do.)
In the 15 years I’ve had a mobile phone I have changed around 5 times. But the last one was just an upgrade that added 40 GB of data while roaming in the EU, US and Canada to my previous unlimited plan for Switzerland only. That increased the cost from 20 to 25 Swiss Franks per month.
